AbstractThrough the ‘procreative paradigm’, sexuality and its relationships to other social practices have recently regained importance in the study of sub-Saharan Africa. Despite its apparent novelty, I argue that this paradigm invokes an anthropological approach that harks back to the discipline's beginnings. In an attempt at a fresh departure, I use Ludwig Wittgenstein's late philosophy to investigate the meaning of sexual prohibitions among the Chagga-speaking people of Rombo District, Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. Starting from local linguistic usage, I describe the multiple ‘language-games’ of the vernacular notion of ‘power’,horu. In this manner, I demonstrate how production, reproduction and consumption are conceptually, practically and materially intertwined through the ‘family resemblances’ of this local concept.Horuis expended through productive practices; in multiple ways it is converted, transferred and exchanged between adults and children in reproduction; and it is replenished through the consumption of specific ‘powerful’ foods. By means of different objects, the activities of work, sex and feeding enable ‘power’ to flow between persons. The multiple vernacular usages of the notion ofhoru, and its practical and material concomitants, interrelate diverse spheres of social life in such a manner that they constitute an overlapping network that extends laterally. Human capability and well-being are constituted through participation in these activities, and engagement in the mutual flows, conversions and exchanges of ‘power’ that encompass humans, livestock and vegetable matter. The sexual prohibitions of Rombo regulate and channel these flows and conversions, in order to ensure their beneficial effects for the parties concerned. I therefore argue that the sexual prohibitions are notex post factointerpretations or justifications that explain or control preceding experiences, but rather that they are constitutive of the local mode of life. An appreciation of lateral relationships between concepts, practices and objects enables an evasion of some of the problems that arise from the procreative paradigm.
Wittgensteins begreb om religion
